I'm sorry that this chapter was a while in coming... it turns out, Sharon is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to get to open up even a little. That woman...!
Special thanks to rosabelle for putting up with my lengthy whining about how I couldn't get even a little bit of voluntary backstory out of Sharon, and for her helpful suggestions!
Days Like These, pt. 6
Three days later, there was still no sign of Jack – but Gavin had called and said that he was still 'handling it', and so Sharon did her best to let him and to put the issue out of her mind.
It wasn't as though there weren't enough other pressing problems to occupy her attention.
"—and since her project was classified and sponsored by the government, all her work files are federal property," Special Agent Morris stood by the murder board, his face starting to grow red with frustration, "and you need to turn them over to me right now! And all the rest of your evidence with it." He turned to her exasperatedly, "Captain –"
"You geniuses didn't even figure out that this woman was missing until we found the body yesterday," Flynn objected with an eye roll, "and if we'd turned the case over to you, all the evidence would still be in the trunk of that car at a chopshop in Westmont!"
A muscle twitched in Morris's jaw. "Captain Raydor," he reiterated, "the case is in federal jurisdiction, and – I appreciate the work you and your team have done so far, don't think that I don't – but the nature of Ms. Blakely's work could be sensitive, and that's why we need you to turn over everything you have to the F-B-I—" (he enunciated each letter individually, as though that made the request more persuasive) "so we can make sure that the proper chain of evidence –"
"Uh, Captain –" Mike was giving her an almost apologetic look, "those vials we found in the trunk of her car are already with SID, and we sent a sample to the CDC as well, so... we're probably not gonna be able to get those back..."
"You let classified evidence leave your custody?!"
"Yeah, well we didn't know that it was classified at the time, Einstein," Andy countered irritatedly, "since your guys didn't bother to share any information!"
"Captain...!"
Sharon was getting a headache.
This was too much drama for a Friday afternoon.
She raised a hand in a somewhat pacifying gesture, "Agent Morris, the –"
"Captain Raydor!" Taylor's displeased growl slithered over from the doorway, followed by the rest of their frowning Chief. He looked as he sounded: unhappy. "Why am I getting calls from the media about potentially dangerous biological agents being stolen from a research lab," he demanded, "and why did the media hear about this before I did?"
Morris's eyes looked ready to pop as he rounded on her. "You told the press?!"
Great.
"Captain," rumbled Taylor warningly.
"Chief, I assure you that no information was given to the media," she returned with perfect calm, "and that as far as we can tell, there are no biological agents missing from the pharmaceutics lab where our victim worked. SID is analyzing the chemicals that were retrieved from her car, they'll call as soon as they know something."
Taylor didn't look fully pacified, but before he could make a reply, the (unfortunately) familiar sound of rapid clicking heels came from behind them.
Through sheer force of will, Sharon managed to contain a grimace.
"Captain Raydor!" Emma's shrill pitch grated on her ears, as the DDA approached and planted herself firmly three feet away, in full steamroller mode. "It's been over two weeks! I told you that I need my. material. witness," (the way she spoke that particular phrase always made Sharon's jaw clench) "to give me a detailed account of where exactly he spent those forty-something hours that he was missing, and you agreed! And yet he hasn't made any attempt to contact me, and now he's dodging me whenever I'm here—"
"I wonder why," Andy grumbled under his breath, with another eye roll that did nothing to defuse the situation.
The DDA continued to glare, "Do you have any idea what Stroh's lawyer can do with –"
"Excuse me, Emma," Taylor lifted a finger to silence her, before turning to Sharon again, himself. "Captain, I want a full. update. on this ongoing case, before —"
"Excuse me, Chief," Agent Morris interjected, "but like I said, the case should be turned over to the FBI, by virtue of the victim's federal grant –"
"Ms Blakely's body was found on city property," Sanchez reminded him.
"The case still belongs to us!" Morris repeated exasperatedly.
"Where is Rusty?" demanded Emma.
Sharon pinched the bridge of her nose.
Yes, there was definitely more than enough competing for her attention.
Maybe Jack had done her a favor by pulling a disappearing act. She was too busy for a divorce at the moment, anyway.
It wasn't until two hours later that she found a moment to track down Rusty. This time, he'd holed up in the smallest, farthest interview room. The two officers in his protection detail waited a small distance away, at each end of the hallway; they'd learned by now that it was best for all involved when they could guard him without being in his direct line of sight.
The boy hadn't tried to give them the slip again after the runaway incident, and Sharon doubted that he would. But he was still every bit as unhappy and frustrated with the constant security as before, and teenagers weren't exactly known for bearing their frustrations gracefully; resentment and reluctance exuded off him in waves whenever the protection detail was around.
But he hadn't said a word of complaint out loud in over two weeks, which meant that he was trying at least. Sharon knew that he was trying because of her, not because he understood how necessary the security really was, but he was staying safe, he was letting her keep him safe, and right now that had to be enough.
She rapped her knuckles lightly against the door, before opening it to stick her head in. Rusty glanced up, and on seeing her he adopted a somewhat sheepish expression. The interview rooms weren't where he was supposed to be hanging out, and he knew it.
Leaning against the doorframe, Sharon regarded him with a soft, smiling look. "You know, Emma is eventually going to figure out all of your hiding spots."
Displeasure flickered across his face at the DDA's name, but he didn't voice any of the many protests that Sharon was sure were going through his head. Instead, his shoulders slumped a little as he asked:
"Do you want me to talk to her...?" He sounded as though he genuinely hoped that she'd say 'no'; Sharon couldn't help a small pang of sympathy.
"In this instance, Emma's right," she told him quietly. "In the unlikely event that this...incident... comes up during your testimony, she has to be prepared for it. And for that to happen, she needs a detailed account of what you did during the period of time that you were missing – "
"But like – Sharon, I spent like half that time on a bus, anyway! And the other half in a smelly old cinema with a bunch of weirdo horror movie fans, so I don't see how Emma thinks that that's..." He trailed off at her expression, and cringed. "But it was like, a safe cinema," he muttered, which helped his case in the amount of zero.
Sharon let out a calming breath, keeping her eyes on him for another moment, before turning her head to glance back at the security detail down the hall.
Moments like these were sobering reminders of why exactly the officers were necessary.
They looked a little wary as they noticed her looking over; their spines straightened automatically, their shoulders squared. Truth be told, they were still a little scared of her these days. That frantic weekend searching for Rusty had not brought out the nicer aspects of her personality.
It certainly didn't help when he reminded her of things such as the night he'd spent curled up alone in a dinky all-night cinema in Stockton.
In the end she decided to drop the matter. They'd been over all of it already, anyway. And if Rusty was back to whining and talking without thinking, at least it was another sign that that awful tension between them was really gone and that, Sharon thought, was a very good thing.
She still turned back again to give him a narrow-eyed look of warning.
"I'll talk to Emma," Rusty said immediately.
She hummed.
Good.
Then she glanced at the watch on her left wrist. It was past six p.m. already... and she couldn't even remember eating lunch. "I have a few things left to wrap up here, but I think we'll be ready to go home in about...fifteen minutes?" She nodded to the pile of textbooks next to his open laptop. "Are you done with your schoolwork for the day?"
To her recollection, Rusty had never returned anything but an eager 'yes' to that question, and now was no exception.
They picked a small Italian bistro for dinner. Sharon liked it because it was cozy and close to home, small enough to suit their increased security needs, and out of the way enough that it was never crowded with a dozen people waiting to be seated. A good place for a quiet dinner, and she liked their Caprese salad and breadsticks.
Rusty liked it because it served something called a 'pizza burger'. Which was every bit as terrible as it sounded.
"Do you think I should get the extra baco–"
"No."
Rusty chanced a quick look at her beneath his eyelashes. "But like, I'm only getting a small one...?" He sighed when she didn't look persuaded, and took a resigned sip from his Coke glass. "For the record, I don't know why you're so against the pizza burger. It says right here that it's got like, twenty grams of protein...!" In all honesty he wasn't entirely sure how much a gram was, but twenty of them sounded like a good amount, and Sharon always went on about protein and nutrition and stuff, right?
She gave him a deadpan look over the top of her menu, then went back to studying what was probably the salad selection.
Honestly.
"Can we get that garlic shrimp thing again?"
She hummed thoughtfully as her eyes moved back to the appetizer section. "Instead of the bruschettas?"
What? Instead of?
Sharon glanced up from her menu again, and her lips pressed together in amusement. "Don't you think ordering three appetizers is a little much?"
As with most of Sharon's questions that started with 'don't you think', it may have sounded like she was actually asking, but Rusty had learned long ago that that wasn't the case.
"No," he informed her pointedly anyway. And was entirely unsurprised when Sharon ignored him.
"We can get the shrimp and the bruschettas," she decided. "We'll leave the antipasto platter for another time."
But he liked the anti-pasta thing! It had like four types of meat, and he didn't know how to pronounce any of them but they were all pretty great—and Sharon didn't roll her eyes at them nearly as much as she did at bacon. (Rusty wasn't sure how that was different, but whatever.)
Finally they settled on an order, and it contained both shrimp and his small pizza burger, so he supposed it wasn't that bad.
Sharon's phone rang about thirty seconds after the waiter had taken away their menus; she took one look at the screen, and Rusty could see a barely perceptible tightening around the corners of her mouth. For a moment it looked like she might let it go to voicemail, but then she sighed, and, raising her index finger, told him quietly, "This will just be a minute honey." Then she slid her finger across the phone screen and put it to her ear. "Hello. Good evening, Gavin..."
Oh.
Rusty tried not to stare, so he fixed his eyes on the fork next to his plate, and took another gulp from his Coke.
Sharon's whole divorce thing was … weird. It made him really uncomfortable. Though not in the way that Sharon thought – it wasn't the divorce itself that bothered Rusty, and he honestly couldn't care less about what Jack had said to or about him (mostly)... it was the fact that somehow he'd ended up causing the whole thing that made him unhappy.
Even though Sharon said that it had nothing to do with him, Rusty knew that if it hadn't been for him, she probably wouldn't have had that awful fight with Jack at the station, and Jack wouldn't have told her those horrible things, and Sharon wouldn't have gotten so mad, and...
He hated the feeling that he was only causing problems in her life. Whatever she said, it was clear that he'd at least been a part of, if not totally at fault for this latest one, too. And now Sharon had to deal with it.
"No, of course not. Rusty and I were just about to have dinner." She was keeping her tone low and neutral, but if he paid attention he could hear an undertone of tension. "Yes...Oh? What...?" There was a longer silence, and Rusty chanced a quick glance to see Sharon frowning as she listened, one hand absently tracing the rim of her water glass. "Gavin," she murmured, and there was a definite note of doubt or disapproval in her voice now. "No, I know, but –" Another brief silence, then she let out a soft sigh. "Good. I know … but this is still how I'd I'd like this done. Yes... Alright," she nodded to herself, then smiled slightly, "Thank you," she said, and a moment later repeated herself, "Gavin – I mean it..thank you. Yes. Okay – you too. Goodbye."
It took a few seconds for her to end the call and replace the phone in her pocket, after which she sighed again, and silently straightened some invisible wrinkles in the neatly folded napkin.
Rusty fidgeted in her seat, giving her a wary glance. "...everything...okay...?"
Sharon paused for a moment, then returned a slow, thoughtful nod; after another second she met his eyes and smiled a little. "That was my lawyer. It appears he was able to locate Jack, and serve him with the divorce papers."
Oh.
The boy wasn't sure how to react. He opened his mouth, but had no idea if this was a 'that's great' moment, or an 'I'm sorry' moment, or something else. "Uh..." And there was that feeling again, that vague discomfort of knowing that he'd somehow been behind all this. "So...what happens now...?"
Sharon let another moment pass, while she pondered her answer. "Now," she replied slowly, "Jack has a limited amount of time to respond, and we'll discuss the terms outlined in those papers. If we can reach an agreement, then we'll both sign, file, and the divorce will be finalized within a couple of months."
She made it sound really straightforward and like, not a big deal at all.
Which probably meant that it was anything but.
"And... if Jack doesn't agree...? To like, your terms?"
Sharon hummed. "Then... if we can't find mutually agreeable terms, we'll have to settle the issue in court. That would take a little longer," she dipped her head in acknowledgment, then looked up again with a small smile, "but the end result will ultimately be the same. And it likely won't come to a court case, anyway."
Rusty squirmed in his seat again. Sharon might have been trying to glaze over it, but he could read between the lines well enough to understand that Jack was basically in the position to make things difficult for her. And knowing Jack, he wasn't exactly gonna go out of his way to 'reach an agreement'.
Damn it.
"Rusty." There was a hint of gravity in her warm gaze. "I told you, this isn't something that you need to be concerned about. I'd like you to focus on your schoolwork, and on staying safe," she reminded him. "Please don't worry about what's going on with Jack. That has nothing to do with you."
He made some sort of unconvinced grimace, that only caused Sharon to looked more concerned.
"Rusty..."
"I know – I know, Sharon. It's just..." He looked into her expectant gaze, and didn't manage more than a vague shrug to convey his thoughts. Obviously it wasn't his business what Sharon did about her marriage; he just wished it didn't feel so much like he'd somehow made things worse for her.
She gave him an affectionate smile, and leaned forward a little to pat his wrist across the table. "Put it out of your mind," she advised. "This divorce is something that needs to happen between me and Jack; it doesn't change anything as far as you and I are concerned. Alright?"
"Yeah... I know." The boy smiled back, though a small measure of doubt still fluttered somewhere in his stomach. But Sharon seemed pretty convinced of what she was saying, and she wouldn't straight out lie to him, so...maybe this divorce thing wouldn't turn out to be such a big deal after all.
Even so, he hoped that Jack wouldn't continue to be an asshole about everything. Rusty didn't even pretend to understand exactly what the deal was between the two of them (well – he was pretty sure that Sharon wasn't still crazy about Jack, there was that), but it seemed to him like they were pretty much already divorced for all practical purposes. Right...? They definitely weren't like, a couple or anything – honestly he couldn't even imagine Sharon and Jack ever being like, married-married. Not like Lt. Tao and his wife, or Brenda and Agent Howard. So why would Jack even want to make the divorce difficult...?
Across the table, Sharon smiled at him again.
At least things were okay between them, now. He'd missed seeing her smile.
Her phone buzzed again just as the waiter was setting a plate of garlic shrimp in front of them. Briefly, Rusty worried that it was her lawyer calling back, that Jack was causing more trouble somehow – but it turned out to be Lt. Flynn; Sharon said something about SIS lab results, and something about inter-agency cooperation, and none of it sounded like an emergency. Rusty helped himself to a piece of shrimp while she gave a few more instructions to the lieutenant.
The meal passed almost too quickly. They got to go out so rarely these days... in fact for the past month – not counting that awful weekend spent looking for Rusty – Sharon couldn't recall having gone anywhere but work and back to the condo. No wonder the boy was feeling confined. She felt much the same way, herself, and between the heavy workload and the increased security and the problems with Jack, relaxation didn't come easily.
"—but like, the new upgrade lets you do it with voice command, instead! So I wouldn't even need to touch the phone, as long as I'm near it..."
She nodded and did her best to follow Rusty's zealous campaign for getting a new phone; it was unlikely that he'd be successful in persuading her, but he seemed to enjoy talking about it anyway, and it couldn't hurt to hear about the latest unnecessary gadgets...
Her phone went off again as she was finishing the last bite of her Caprese. At nearly eight p.m., she doubted it was work – their case was in a place where they could let it rest for the night. The screen showed a local number she didn't recognize; after a moment's deliberation, Sharon pressed the voicemail button—
"Oh my god!"
The shrill cry came from a few feet away; Rusty jumped slightly, before turning to the table behind them. For her part, Sharon had nearly jumped out of her seat, one arm stretching across the table to grab the boy's shoulder, while with the other hand she reached instinctively into her bag for her gun. Luckily, by the time her fingers clenched around the cold metal handle, her mind had processed what she was seeing. The alarm dissipated. Slowly, she relaxed back into her chair.
Two people occupied the table behind theirs: a man in jeans and an elegant shirt, and a young woman in a low-cut dress that looked just a note too fancy for the low-key bistro. They sat close to each other, their chairs shifted around the table a little to put them even closer. The woman was currently staring wide-eyed into the bottom of a champagne glass; the man was staring at her, with a mixture of anticipation and nervousness.
Having figured out what was going on, Rusty lost interest and turned back around in his seat. He rolled his eyes, pointedly in relation to the scene happening behind them. It was clear that he was unimpressed; the corners of Sharon's mouth turned upward at the sight of his wry expression.
"Problem?" she asked in a low voice laced with amusement.
The boy's eyebrows wriggled. "I mean, not if you don't care about getting points for like, originality..." ("Yes!" came another shriek in the background, and Rusty rolled his eyes again, much to her continued entertainment.)
Sharon hummed neutrally, and took a sip from her water. For a few moments, she let her gaze drift over to the newly engaged couple again... they were murmuring to each other now, wearing those looks of dazed enthusiasm, their eyes sparkling and their gestures wide and demonstrative, as though they were having a hard time containing their joy. Rusty was wrong, she mused... originality points didn't really matter to those two right now. When the man finally slipped the ring on to the woman's finger, Sharon politely joined in for the round of congratulatory applause from patrons at the other tables.
Shifting her attention back to Rusty, she caught him giving her a searching, somewhat uncertain look.
"What's wrong?"
"Uh..." He scratched his neck, and glanced at her warily again. "Nothing."
Obviously it was something, but she was having trouble figuring out what could've possibly happened in the last thirty seconds to make him uneasy.
The boy stuffed the last bit of his pizza burger into his mouth with the urgency of someone who hadn't eaten in three days, and must've swallowed without even chewing because a second later he looked up at her and said, "If you want to like... go...? I'm ready." He choked a little and downed the remainder of his Coke in one long gulp. "Yeah. We can go if you want." After a second, he ate the last shrimp, too. "Whenever you want."
She was still at a loss as to the reasons behind his sudden discomfort, when the young man at the next table stood up and, walking over, asked her if she could take some pictures of him and his now-fiancee. Sharon snapped a few shots on his iPhone, congratulated them again as he thanked her, and then looked back to Rusty, who was staring at her with some confusion.
"That doesn't like...bother you...?"
What...?
It dawned on her, then, what his problem was –and almost involuntarily her lips pressed into a small smile.
"Rusty, just because I'm divorcing Jack," she assured, "that hasn't soured me on the institution of marriage as a whole. Especially not on other people's marriages," she added as a humorous afterthought.
Both elbows on the table, his hands clasped around the empty Coke glass, the boy didn't appear fully convinced. "When you were looking at them just then... I don't know, you looked kinda..." A vague shrug finished his sentence. "Like you were maybe thinking about...what could've happened, or whatever."
Sharon bit her lips. She hadn't been wondering about 'what ifs', but she had to admit that her mind had, momentarily, flashed back to a moment more than three decades past...
Jack hadn't proposed to her in a restaurant. It had been at home in her minuscule studio, spontaneous and uncoordinated, his hand holding hers over a bunch of open envelopes and crumpled papers strewn across the kitchen table...
"No," she said quietly. "I was thinking about some... parallels, perhaps, that's true. But not in a bad way."
"I used to do that, sometimes," added Rusty. His eyes flickered briefly to hers, then he fixed them on the table cloth. "Like, when I saw kids my age...with their moms...at the mall or whatever, getting stuff for school or just out on the street. I didn't like it," he told her. "Because they just reminded me of... what I – what... of what happened with my mom, and everything."
Sharon's mouth twisted in sympathy. He still wasn't looking at her, staring instead at the handle of his fork, his eyebrows drawn together in a slight scowl.
"So I thought maybe, when..." his head motioned toward the table behind them and the newly engaged couple, "...that you might be..." He didn't finish, apparently unsure of what to say – but he'd made himself clear enough.
"I understand," nodded Sharon.
"So like, if you wanted to leave..."
She gave him a compassionate smile when he chanced another momentary glance at her. "I'm not uncomfortable, honey," she told him. "But we can leave whenever you want."
Rusty stayed silent for a moment, then returned another noncommittal shrug that tried to say that he didn't mind either way.
"Unless you'd like dessert...?" Sharon proposed carefully.
Almost against himself, the boy smirked. He met her eyes, then glanced at the dessert menu that the waiter had left on the edge of the table. Sharon was looking back at him warmly; she smiled a little when he ended up reaching for the menu.
But the words on the list didn't make much sense when he tried to focus on them; his mind wasn't ready to move on. After a second, Rusty raised his eyes again, and saw that Sharon's gaze was still on him.
"I don't feel like that so much, anymore," he told her in a low, earnest tone.
Her head tilted fractionally, as she tried to understand what he meant.
"When I see those other kids," he said. "I mean, I still can't help thinking about it sometimes, but I don't... now, it's just... it got... better." He shrugged a little awkwardly again. "Guess it's just easier to think about the good things, now."
He saw the corner's of Sharon's eyes crinkle. Something in her look made him hopeful that maybe she understood what he was trying to say.
"I'm glad," she told him softly.
"Yeah... me too." He managed another uncertain smile in her direction, before ducking his head and going back to the dessert menu.
Somehow, they'd gotten off track; he'd been trying to tell her that it was okay to leave if she wasn't happy, but instead they'd ended up talking about him again. Rusty had no idea how that happened, sometimes. It was a Sharon thing. But it...helped, he was learning. Maybe. A little. Talking about things with her...it wasn't so bad.
Obviously that didn't work both ways, though, because Sharon never really talked about anything. When it concerned him, she was all 'let's discuss this' and 'you should always feel at ease bringing things up with me' and 'what's on your mind', but when it came to what was bothering her, it was 'fine' and 'don't worry' and 'did you finish your homework'.
He did wonder sometimes, though. What was on her mind, for a change.
"How do you feel about the tiramisu?" She was smiling that easy smile of hers when he glanced up.
Tiramisu was one of those things that he'd never tried until Sharon, and that after much grumbling and protesting her weird taste in unpronounceable foods, he'd discovered that he actually liked. Like, a lot. Caffeine and chocolate – what was there not to love? And if Sharon was offering it at eight p.m., he wasn't about to say no.
He put down the menu and gave her a satisfied grin. "Sounds good to me."
Sharon's phone buzzed again about halfway through their shared dessert. She pulled it closer to glance at the screen.
"Busy night?" This was what, the fourth call that evening? That was a lot even for Sharon.
She returned a noncommittal hum, her brow furrowing in slight puzzlement as she studied the caller's number.
"You guys have like, a big FBI case, right? That sounded important..."
"We do," Sharon agreed a little absently, "...but I don't think anyone else needs to call me tonight about that. Actually, I'm not sure who this is." After a moment, she silenced the phone and put it aside again. Rusty's eyebrows arched:
"So, you're not even like, curious...?" He could never resist picking up unknown numbers. Part of it was curiosity, though another part of it was...something else. Hope, maybe. Or maybe stupidity.
Sharon didn't seem to suffer from that problem, though. If anything, she actually seemed to really not want to pick up.
She dropped the phone in her purse with another quiet hum. "If it's important, I'm sure they'll call back or leave a message."
Which made sense, sure – and yet that didn't seem to be the whole story, somehow. She still looked kind of preoccupied...or maybe slightly annoyed? Although why would she – oh.
"You don't think it's got something to do with Jack...?" he asked before he could think it through.
The look that Sharon gave him was a great reminder of why he didn't usually venture asking.
"Uh – I mean...if – if your lawyer served him with divorce papers, I guess maybe he'd want to uh, talk about it... or...whatever..."
After the most awkward few seconds of his life, Sharon's head finally dipped a fraction. "The possibility has crossed my mind," she acknowledged. "In which case, the conversation can certainly wait until tomorrow. But," she waved a reassuring hand, "more likely, it's something completely unrelated."
Right.
Rusty bit his lips and did his best to look like he had no opinion on anything at all, because obviously that was the safest way to go here. But he must've not done a great job keeping the doubt off his face, since a second later Sharon sighed and added,
"Rusty... I told you, I don't want the situation between me and Jack to be a source of discomfort for you."
"It's not!" He paused at her look, and amended, "Okay – but like, it's not 'discomfort', Sharon. It's... I mean, I've already got someone threatening to kill me, right, so Jack's not really a big deal compared to that..."
The way she lifted a hand to massage her temple told him that that might not have been as reassuring as he'd meant it.
"Uh... What I'm trying to say is uhm...if you need to like, focus on this divorce thing, I can uh...deal with my own problems for a while...?"
Okay, that just got him another unhappy grimace, so clearly it wasn't the right thing to say, either.
"First of all Rusty, I've already explained that they're not 'your' problems," Sharon said calmly, "right now they're our problems – and second of all," she continued, "I absolutely do not want to focus on Jack. Oh honey if I'd had a choice, I certainly wouldn't have conjured back in the middle of all this." She smiled a little, shaking her head. "But, since I couldn't control the timing of his return, not to mention his subsequent behavior, the best thing left to do right now is make sure that he's not in a position to cause any further disruptions. In either of our lives."
"...and...you're gonna do that by divorcing him."
"That seems to be the most efficient way, yes."
Really?
Rusty pulled a face.
"And you're like...okay with that?"
Sharon was rubbing a hand to her forehead. Great.
"I am, yes."
Right, then.
"I'd really like you to not worry about this anymore," said Sharon, for only about the fiftieth time or so.
"Okay, but like..." he nodded to her purse, where she'd put away the phone, "what if Jack decides to... make... trouble, or whatever?"
This time, there was a genuine lightness in Sharon's amused huff. "Rusty, I've known Jack for almost four decades," she smiled. "I'm confident that at this point I can handle every kind of trouble he can make."
Rusty stared at her.
Sharon tilted her head at him again, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Just, uh...I guess I didn't realize that you've known Jack for like... a really long time...?"
She smiled once more as she nodded, then thought back for a moment, "Thirty-six years, to be precise." Her eyebrows arched in amusement at the boy's baffled look. "We met when I was still in college."
"That's like, twice as long as I've been alive."
Sharon's amused expression froze.
Then she closed her eyes, with a quiet sigh, and pressed two fingers between her eyebrows. "Yes... I suppose it is, isn't it."
Rusty wasn't exactly sure what he'd said this time, but it had obviously been the wrong thing, too, because Sharon looked like she was getting a migraine or something.
"Uhm– okay, so uh..." he stammered through trying to figure out something else to say, "if you were in college, did you guys like... have classes together or something?" Wait – did they allow co-ed colleges back then? He tried to remember. Was that like, the 80s?
Sharon let out another sigh, because Rusty looked about ready to pull a muscle straining to think that far back.
She picked up her dessert spoon and carved another bite out of her half of the tiramisu.
"Something like that," she relented – and then instead of being relieved to drop the conversation, the boy had to go from looking painfully awkward to impossibly curious, his eyes virtually lighting up with interest, and... almost despite herself Sharon felt another smile forming.
Alright, then.
She added, "It was in the spring of my junior year, actually..."
He had better not ask her if Lincoln was still president.
Next chapter, we'll get Sharon's account of how she and Jack first met! And we might get an appearance from present-day Jack, as well, because he is less than thrilled with Sharon right now.
So, I'm going to try to not sink this story down into the same well of unending angst that my other stories tend to go into, but I'm reluctant to make any strong promises. It's hard to write the story of Sharon's marriage WITHOUT unending angst... but we'll see how it goes.
Thank you all for reading! :)